


So Full of Scars

by eonism



Series: Pioneer to the Falls [4]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood, Cutting, D/s, Established Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Knifeplay, M/M, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 03:06:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6177712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eonism/pseuds/eonism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanting to be owned – to be loved, and held, and cherished in ways that required blood and violence – was difficult to put to words. </p><p>[A deleted scene from Pioneer to the Falls]</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Full of Scars

 

> _“What a collection of scars you have. Never forget who gave you the best of them, and be grateful, our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.”_
> 
> \--Hannibal Lecter, _**Red Dragon**_ by Thomas Harris

 

Will didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted of Hannibal. The question lacked a definite shape, too slippery in his mind to grip with any measure of certainty. It had nothing to do with the words themselves, or the way they felt on his tongue. The words tumbled away whenever he thought to put voice to them, getting lost somewhere between the warm spot inside his ribcage and the sounds they made whenever he opened his mouth to speak them.

It had everything to do with the way Hannibal’s hands felt on Will’s skin. It had even more to do with the soft, almost imperceptible way Hannibal’s breathing changed when he traced the edges of Will’s scars. The blade of Hannibal’s index and middle fingers would travel east to west on the jagged equator bisecting Will’s stomach, the incisions on each cheek, and the soft pucker of bullet entry wounds on either shoulder. And Will was so full of such scars, from minor notches to the major histories of physical violence that he still wore in his skin, now thin and pale with time.

Thin and pale, but still visible. Fresh enough in his mind to notice them whenever he dressed and undressed, and sensitive to the touch.

They each marked him in different ways. He once thought of these scars as ugly reminders, signaling him to others as broken. Used-up. Stained. The toothed, scrawling wound across his belly once marked him as Hannibal’s – his pet, his curiosity, his plaything. Now it, along with the other scars in his collection, marked Will as beloved, cared-for, and owned.

And wanting to be owned – to be loved, and held, and cherished in ways that required blood and violence – was difficult to put to words.

But Will was going to learn.

\--

“What do you want?”

Will stood by the study’s tall windows, overlooking the neighborhood below. The street was quiet after dark, pale yellow light glowing from windows and inside hearths. It painted an idyllic scene. He nursed a glass of bourbon; it made him feel warm and loose under his skin. He needed it, the false courage, to let this sit with himself. The relative peace of their relationship allowed Will to trust Hannibal; figuring out where Will landed on the issue, however, was another matter altogether.

When Will didn’t answer Hannibal, Hannibal came to stand beside him. A hand first on Will’s shoulder as Hannibal leaned close, then another on his waist. To catch, as Will so often needed to be caught, and keep him rooted to the spot. Will took a deep breath as Hannibal pressed into him from behind, Hannibal’s chest filling the arc of Will’s back, his lips touching to the skin above Will’s shirt collar. The immediate urge to deflect – to evade – dissolved as Hannibal closed a fond hand around the base of Will’s throat.

Hannibal didn’t let Will run anymore, and never gave him room for escape. Will was grateful for that, in a soft and wordless way.

“I need you to tell me what you want me to do, Will. What you want requires clarity and understanding, on your part as well as mine.”

Hannibal’s other hand took Will by the wrist. He let Will set the glass down before Hannibal brought Will’s hand down to his side to thread their fingers together. His words were gentle as they spoke them against the nape of Will’s neck, the vowel sounds getting lost in Will’s hair.

“Do you want me to hurt you?”

Will swallowed. “Yes.”

“How?”

“I want you to… _cut_ me.”

Hannibal paused. “How long have you wanted to ask this of me?”

“Long enough,” Will said.

Since the first time Hannibal laid him across the sheets, and kissed him, and held him. When the thought of Hannibal’s hands on Will’s body was met with the initial coil of fight-or-flight, before his defenses melted under their weight. When he expected to be harmed, and was met with naked affection instead. But he didn’t say that, either.

“You want me to scar you? To mark you as my possession?”

The fingers tightened on Will’s throat; they curled to stroke the line of his pulse. It quickened for the touch. Will nodded.

“Yes.”

“Is this for your pleasure or mine?”

“Doesn’t it please you to see me marked?”

“Yes. But I’ve already marked you, as you’ve marked me. If I cut you now, it must be for your pleasure, Will.”

Will’s mouth felt dry, the words sticking in his throat. “I want you to cut me, Hannibal.”

“It would please you to bleed for me? And to allow me to open your skin with my blade?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s begin.”

\--

Will laid on the bed as he was told. Arms outstretched, palms turned up, and fingers open. He didn’t take off his clothes. He took a deep breath. Hannibal gathered a scalpel, antiseptic, gauze, medical tape, and bandages. The scalpel looked sharp, unused. New. Will took another deep breath as Hannibal sat down with the scalpel in hand.

“I’ll need you to relax, Will,” Hannibal said softly. “And to trust me.”

“Have you thought about doing this before?” Will didn’t mean for his voice to sound as small as it did.

“Yes.” Hannibal studied the length of Will’s body. His pupils swelled with familiar tenderness as he followed the fine blue carotid artery with the dull side of the scalpel. For it, Will sighed. “I have imagined cutting you many times, and in many ways. All for pleasure – both yours and mine. I have no desire to harm you again.”

“Hurt and harm – isn’t it the same thing?”

“The body reacts to pleasure in much the same way that it reacts to pain. Your skin and nervous system will indulge my affections, whether I use my hands or a knife. But harm can’t be processed or managed – it can only be endured.”

Will swallowed again. He watched Hannibal draw the scalpel down the front of his shirt, button by button. Then Hannibal began to undress him, opening his shirt, exposing his skin to the cool air. His muscles tensed. It left Will feeling naked, susceptible, his hands markedly empty as he curled his fingers into his palms.

“This isn’t meant to be endured, Will,” Hannibal said. With his other hand, he pet along the base of Will’s throat, over his chest, and along his stomach with a flattened palm. Relaxing Will, causing his body to stretch out and lengthen, arching to the touch. “It’s meant to be enjoyed.”

The contact stopped as his fingers reached Will’s belt. Hannibal lingered in his attention, his hand hovering over the navel – feeling the muscles tighten under the skin, despite Will’s efforts not to let it show – before settling on one of Will’s thighs. Then Hannibal followed the planes of Will’s chest with the blade, pressing just hard enough to feel the scalpel’s bite on his bare skin. Will was vulnerable but not afraid, even as Hannibal made the first, delicate incision beneath his collarbone. The wound bled in a faint, red line.

Will sucked in a breath as the initial sting broke into a warming sensation. It blossomed around the spot where metal tasted flesh. Pain, like a dull shock, followed by the pleasure of adrenaline and endorphins rushing over him to compensate for injury. Hannibal canted his head to watch Will, before notching another, shorter cut beneath the first. His free hand soothed circles into Will’s thigh.

“How does that feel?”

“I thought you would use a knife,” said Will, shirking the question. Even for it, his pulse thrummed in his temple and in his fingertips. “A scalpel seems…performative. Sterilized.”

“This is an intimate act, which requires an instrument that nurtures intimacy,” Hannibal replied. “A scalpel will allow me to control how deeply I cut you, and how much it will scar.”

“But I want to be scarred.”

“And you will be.” The scalpel carved a set to match on the other collarbone, marking Will’s skin in long and elegant strokes. “But a knife is a blunt tool, meant to take my pleasure from this act rather than cultivate your own.”

Slowly, Hannibal scored Will’s chest in careful incisions. Around the dusky swell of Will’s nipple, along the rise of his diaphragm, and over his ribcage. The marks bled bright on his skin, beading red where his chest flushed. Will’s breath caught, hitching first at the pain and then the pleasure that followed. He closed his eyes as Hannibal let the blade dip low to circle his navel. It scraped the skin, teasing it, raising an angry red line without drawing blood.

With a gentle hand, Hannibal took Will by the chin to kiss – slow and full. All softness and tongue, until Will let out the low moan he had been holding in. Then Hannibal bent his head to flatten his tongue against the cuts on Will’s collarbones. He lapped up the blood from the mirroring wounds and moved down, flicking his tongue over each incision and licking them clean. The wet, firm pressure of his tongue felt like an invasion where the skin separated, painful but not alarming. Strange, but not altogether uninvited.

When Hannibal pulled away, his hands returned to Will’s belt to unbuckle it. “Do you want to know how you taste?”

Heat pooled at the floor of Will’s hips in a dark, mounting sort of thrill. He pressed his lips together to wet them. “Have you thought about that before, too?”

“Yes. I had hoped you wouldn’t find it too lurid a possibility.” Hannibal pulled Will’s belt free and began to undress him below the waist. He sat back to remove Will’s slacks and underwear, and then pressed their bodies together again to kiss Will’s open mouth. “Do you?”

The taste of his own blood was coppery as Will sucked it from Hannibal’s tongue. His skin was cold everywhere that Hannibal’s mouth hadn’t been, despite the redness climbing his face and throat. It was a peculiar feeling – hot but cold, vulnerable but safe. He wanted to sit up, to do something about the layers of clothing Hannibal still wore, and to taste his own blood on Hannibal’s tongue again. But he didn’t, because this was about scars.

This was about trust.

“No. I know you find it…intimate.” Will took another deep breath, and, with a certain heat motivating his curiosity, asked, “Would you eat me?”

“Are you curious if I would?”

“Yes.”

“As a matter of intimacy, or concern?”

“I’m curious what it would mean to you now,” Will answered, “if you still wanted to.”

Hannibal looked at Will so lovingly, then. He stroked a hand through Will’s hair and said, “Yes. If I survived you, I would honor you, and keep you with me, as you deserve to be honored. But I no more intend to survive you, Will, than I intend for you to survive me.”

Moving away again, Hannibal reached for the scalpel to take it in hand. His fingers grazed the equator of Will’s stomach. “Do you trust me to continue?”

After a moment, Will nodded. “Yes.”


End file.
